The Charge

Let's Samba!

The Case

Diego, the cousin of Dora the Explorer, is an animal rescuer who goes on all
sorts of wacky adventures with his animal friends. The popular Nickelodeon
production coughs up four episodes for this collection. If Diego's squealing,
too-happy voice doesn't prompt you to jam steak knives into your ears, I'll be
impressed.

• "Diego and Porcupine Save the Pinata"It's
Porcupine's birthday and Diego and his friends make him an awesome piñata.
Unfortunately, the Bobo Brothers, who are apparently as stupid as their names
suggest, tie way too many balloons to it and floats away. How are they going to
possibly salvage this catastrophe? With your help of course (providing you're
3). Along the way, Diego and Porcupine will have to untangle trees, repel a
storm cloud, fly down a zip-line and face man-eating pumas that recoil at the
sight of a small boy and woodland creature dancing. Um, don't try that at home
kids.

• "A New Flamingo Mami"Your mission, should you
choose to accept it: accompany Diego as he embarks on a mountain rescue to save
Mami Flamingo. See, Mami went to the caves to find a rattle for new baby or
something and got lost. That's not the worst of it. Her baby egg is currently
being threatened by rising lake water.

• "Macky the Macaroni Penguin"Diego is searching
for a baby penguin that just hatched from her egg. He needs to track the wayward
newborn amidst snowball-throwing Arctic monkeys (?!) and death-defying downhill
body skiing and return her to her Spanish-speaking penguin mom at Penguin
Island.

• "Linda the Llama Saves Carnaval"It's time to
party as Diego plans a Carnaval celebration complete with a parade and Samba
dancing. Linda the Llama, tasked with carrying musical instruments gets stuck in
the mud and drops the baskets filled with the Carnaval goodies. Your goal: Samba
off, clapping like an idiot, to find the baskets before the animals awaiting the
Carnaval grow desperate for entertainment and go on a killing spree.

In true Dora-ish interactive fashion, this is an interactive experience,
with Diego constantly throwing out questions from the TV and awaiting your
child's responses. You also get songs and dances and Spanish lessons. I found it
all just as annoying as the Dora flim-flam, but as is usually the case for these
hugely popular children's shows your offspring will probably delight in Diego's
misadventures. The DVD: full frame, 2.0 stereo and the most basic set-top game
I've ever seen (you count animals).